September
10, 2004
New
Dining and Catering Options Offered This Fall at Blanchard
A movable
feast |
Booking
for a new venue for your next department meeting luncheon, a
colleague’s retirement party, or your book club’s
holiday gathering? Look no further. Starting this fall, the Blanchard
Campus Center will offer a variety of catering options to the
Mount Holyoke community. With three large events—a 220-person
wedding, a South Hadley high school class reunion, and a benefit
gala for the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts—under
its belt, dining services has designed a range of catering menus
to fit any and all palates and pocketbooks.
“We were thrilled with every aspect of our event at Blanchard. The service
couldn’t have been better,” said MHC director of publications Tekla
McInerney, one of the organizers of the Women’s Fund gala. “Rebecca
[Joyner, Blanchard’s evening café manager and event planner] and
her staff went out of their way to accommodate us.”
To showcase the various banquet options, dining services is planning a catering
open house in Blanchard for faculty and staff in mid-October. The MHC community
will get an idea of the kinds of events dining services can help them plan and
what they can expect to see, be it a business luncheon meeting or a personal
catered event. Faculty and staff will also get to see and sample some of the
menu items. More detailed information will be forthcoming in the next couple
of weeks.
“Blanchard Campus Center lends itself to a variety of catering venues for
indoor and outdoor events, and the views it offers are spectacular,” said
Dale Hennessey, director of dining services. “Because Blanchard is a student
center and a board-plan option for most of the year [as well as] a conference
site in the summer, certain time constraints and challenges limit us to the kinds
of catering venues that we are able to offer. As we continue to get requests
for catered events, the need to assess the appropriate balance of successfully
executing those catering venues without compromising student programs and dining
or conferences is of utmost importance.”
Dining services has also expanded Blanchard’s daily menu to attract more
faculty and staff. The new salad sensations station will offer three standards—Mary
Lyon garden greens, classic Caesar, and spinach—and two specialty seasonal
salads that will change weekly. In addition to a gamut of hot and cold items,
there will be daily specials at both the grill and deli stations.
The brick oven station will still serve specialty pizzas as well as calzones,
empanadas, foccacia, meatball subs, and stromboli. Personal pizzas will be available
from 2 pm to closing. For busy faculty and staff, “home replacement” meals,
better known as “takeout” or “grab-and-go,” will be available
with advanced notice.
“We thoroughly enjoyed seeing faculty and staff dining with us this past
summer and want to continue to see them during the academic year,” said
Hennessey. “The faculty and staff certainly seemed to enjoy getting together
over lunch with colleagues who they normally do not get to see or with their
coworkers. Hopefully, with the helpful hints for avoiding long lines and the
crowds in the Café, the new additions to our menus, and the various dining
venues offered at Uncommon Grounds and the Atrium Café, we will become
a regular lunch dining venue.”
Dining services has created several new dining programs to help minimize waiting
time. For “Beat the Rush,” Hennessey suggests that diners arrive
at Blanchard Café before noon or shortly thereafter for lunch and before
5:30 pm for dinner. For “After the Rush,” if your schedule permits,
it’s best to wait until 12:45–1 pm for lunch and until after 8:30
pm for dinner. Common Grounds will continue its express lunch featuring soup,
salad, and sandwich combos from 11 am to 3 pm. A 10-percent discount will be
offered on all purchases anytime faculty and staff use their MHCXpress account
at the Blanchard Café and Uncommon Grounds.
The Atrium Café in Kendade Hall will offer sandwiches and grinders from
11 am to 2 pm, Monday–Friday. In addition to a range of soft drinks, coffee
will also be available this year. A separate line for faculty and staff will
help those in a hurry.
For those needing just a snack, Cub’s Corner, the convenience store located
on Blanchard’s ground floor, offers a typical variety of convenience store
items, including bottled beverages, snacks, microwavable items, health and beauty
aids, sundries, novelty ice cream, and candy.
For more information about the new dining and catering options,
go to www.mtholyoke.edu/dining/blanchard.
The
counter is
977
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